


Imagination

by interestinggin



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: AU, Body Horror, Gore, Horror, IN CASE I HAVE NOT MADE THIS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR, Mirror Universe, Multi, Nightmare Fuel, Other, Psychological Horror, THIS IS NOT A PLEASANT STORY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 13:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5249591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interestinggin/pseuds/interestinggin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'They are inside your house. They are your family. They are watching you now. And they want you dead. But don't let it keep you awake at night, my friend.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oddegg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddegg/gifts).



> This fic was written for [this deliciously terrifying prompt](http://1stclass-kink.livejournal.com/4418.html?thread=6383426#t6383426) at the x-men kink meme. These characters are mirror!verse versions of themselves; the prompt was to 'take everything good and turn it to the dark side'.   
> I think it succeeded, which is to say, **here be triggers; proceed with caution**.
> 
> This work has been podficced by [reena_jenkins](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1026199), and it's absolutely fucking terrifying. I highly recommend it.

**i**

Imagine, for a moment, that you cannot move.  
  
Not because of fear. But because the metal of your wristwatch fuses to the frame of your chair, and because the arm of the chair twists round and traps you in, and the man who steps over the doorway to your “Who is it?” snarls, bares his sharp white teeth in a demonic grin, and suddenly a detective finds his gun flying from his belt and shooting him straight through the head. His brains hit the wall beside you.  
  
This police station should be calm; a nightlight on perhaps, you with your feet up on your desk, reading a magazine or the paper, the local drunks whiling away the time in their cells. You are a good sergeant and a kind one – you keeps the keys well out of reach, and you’ll even make a man a coffee if he’s a good enough houseguest for the night. There should be the occasional call through from dispatch, or the change in shifts causing a minor disruption.  
  
What there should not be is blood pooling on the floor, and a rookie pinned to the door by his badge, the metal ripped through the leather and slammed through his throat, which is blacking at the edges where the blood is clotting. What there should not be is a man curled in the cells with the screws from the bench working their way under his fingernails, an inch at a time, slow and protracted as he screams. What there should not be is a tall man, chuckling to himself, as he holds out a hand and makes a screwdriver scrape your skin.  
  
“Why – how – why the fuck are you doing this?” you whisper, the sweat cold on your neck and your eyes staring wildly at the screwdriver as it traces your hand. He laughs.  
  
“Because people like you deserve it, sergeant,” he says, giggling, and the screwdriver slams into your hand with a piercing, tearing flash of white hot pain. It pins you to the chair, and the bile rises in your throat. You cannot look, squeeze your eyes shut to see anything but this nightmare.  
  
He tuts. “I think you ought to be brave enough to watch, don’t you?” He puts his hand around your throat, squeezes your cheeks together and turns your head to face him. You pull away despite yourself. He is disdainful.  
  
“Well, if you don’t want to see what’s in front of you,” he drawls, and the screwdriver pulls itself out with a sickening squelch and agony like a fire spike, “I don’t see why you need these at all.”  
  
Imagine that you open your eyes in spite of yourself, because they are the only thing you can feel apart from the pain. Imagine that the last thing you see before the screaming in your skull is the sharp metal blade of the screwdriver flying straight towards your eyes, and the gleam of the lamplight on the man’s smile.  
  
Imagine that as, the blade twists round, and pierces your eyes, as the blood trickles down your face, all you can hear is the laughter.  
  
Imagine what metal items are in your house right now. Imagine all the things this man could do with them.  
  
Imagine all the ways there are to die, and try not to have nightmares.  
  
Yes. Imagine that.  
  
**ii**  
  
Imagine that your mother is not your mother.  
  
You sit at the kitchen table with her, and she makes you dinner. She tuts at you, and you argue, and she sigh ' _sweetheart_ ' like you're acting like a child. She judges your boyfriends. In the evenings you sit down and watch reruns of shows that aren’t funny and never were, and sometimes – when you’re unhappy or tired – she still tucks you into bed with a kiss, even though you protest you’re too old.  
  
You tell her everything. She is your safety blanket. She smells like home and jasmine and warm milk.  
  
One night, she comes home and tells you that she had a car accident. You are terrified; hold her close and murmur into her skin that you never want to lose her. Over the top of your head, imagine that she smiles, and it shows teeth.  
  
A few days later, you sit with her on the sofa, eating shepherd's pie and watching  _Jeopardy_.  
  
Imagine that the woman who is sat with you now is not your mother.  
  
Beside you, her skin ripples. You do not notice, at first, but she gasps. You turn to her. She stutters out “sweetheart, I –” and there is a tearing, a noise like old paper ripping, and a hole is torn across her chest, spreading. She screams.  
  
“Mum?” you shout, leaping up from the sofa, grabbing her by the shoulders, and then, more panicked, “Mum!”  
  
The scream turns into a gurgle, blood pouring from her mouth.

“Sw- sw-”  
  
She cannot manage words, and falls back on the sofa, her back arching as her body shakes and she tries to breathe through the blood. You waste no time; run to the phone in the hall and dial 911 with red fingers.  
  
“Hello, for god’s sake, please,” you begin, and then your voice trails off.  
  
Imagine there is a mirror that hangs across the phone. You catch your own haunted eyes in it, and then behind you, you see your mother, standing, dripping blood. She reaches out a hand and lays it on your shoulder. Imagine that you feel the weight of it there, feel your mother’s blood sticking to your jumper. Imagine that you can smell the death in every drop. Imagine that you will never feel clean again.  
  
“Mum?” you try, and your voice is hoarse.  
  
Then you see her face change, contort, and split open as it flips back, revealing blue scales, and bright staring yellow eyes. She grins at you.  
  
“Oh, _sweetheart_ ,” she murmurs through a smile and a flicker of a reptilian tongue, “your mum’s been dead for days”. Imagine the cold terror, creeping through your bones, as you realise how she held you, how she tucked you in at night. Imagine that the blue hand comes round and covers your mouth, chokes your scream before it has a chance to be born. Imagine that you struggle, but it is no use.  
  
Imagine all the people this creature might be.

(Your father's been acting a little differently recently, hasn't he?)

Imagine that she could be anyone, could be anything. Imagine she is in your house right now.  
  
Because she is.  
  
Oh, dear. Imagine that.  
  
**iii**  
  
Imagine that the boy who hates you doesn’t need weapons to kill.  
  
Imagine that you run a prison wing; the one for the sickos and freaks, the ones who get off on the killing. The boy they bring in doesn’t look old enough to be in here, looks like he ought to be in juvie, but the guy who hands him over tells you to take him straight to solitary. Imagine that he glares at you in his orange jumpsuit, and the darkness in his eyes startles you. You know, right then, that the softness in your heart is misplaced, and that he wants you dead.  
  
You check once more that he hasn’t smuggled anything in, do the strip search, and as you pull the gloves off you brush against his skin, feel it hot and burning up with anger. You give him his new uniform and take him down the hall.  
  
Imagine that, just for a moment, shackled as he is, you take your eyes and gun off him as you pass another prisoner, going to the exercise yard or the library or the chaplain, and in that second, your back turned, a bright light emblazons itself on your eyelids. You smell fire, and hear a cry, and as you spin round the prisoner falls apart before your eyes, split right in half and burning. You reach for your gun, but you are too late. A fist wrapped in a handcuff hits you in the back of the head, and you fall to the ground.  
  
Imagine that the fire burns around you, licks at your body, crawls over the slices of the prisoner beside you, whose hand is outstretched, flung towards you, his dead fingers touching your face. Imagine that the sprinklers come on too late, the flames already raging down the hall.  
  
There are screams of men stuck behind metal bars that are growing too hot to touch, and you know that they are dying. The water sticks your clothes to your skin.  
  
Imagine that the boy who hates you has a fire burning in his eyes too.  
  
Imagine that the wheel of fire hurts, as it tears through you, leaving you torn and blazing. Imagine it leaves you still alive enough to scream.  
  
Imagine a boy who is a weapon, and imagine him coming to your door. Imagine the light rushing through your hall, imagine the world burning down around you.  
  
Decide how you could hide from that.  
  
Have fun, child, tonight, when you imagine that.  
  
**iv**  
  
Imagine that you cannot even trust your own thoughts.  
  
Imagine that you meet a man in a bar, a handsome man with a boyish face and deep blue eyes, who pulls you with a cute and cheeky comment about mutation and your beautiful hair, and you find yourself walking back with him through the winter snow, leaning happily on his arm. Imagine it feels like all you ever wanted. Imagine he asks you up for a coffee.  
  
Imagine you blush, and say you’re going to have to refuse, but – and you run your tongue along your teeth and look up through thick dark eyelashes – would he like to get dinner sometime?  
  
And those beautiful blue eyes harden, and grow as cold as the snow itself.  
  
Imagine that suddenly you feel the urge to leave ebbing, and all of you – every bit of your body, every nerve in your mind – is burning, and you need to go upstairs. "Please," you gasp, and you are trembling with desire. You will go mad, lose your mind, if he does not take you up. He does not seem to understand, but he laughs. You beg him, tear at his shirt with shaking hands and beg him through your tears to take you upstairs.  
  
Eventually, smiling twistedly with only one side of his face, he agrees.  
  
Imagine that the next thing you know, you are standing in his flat in your underwear. You panic, look around yourself, throw your hands over your body to preserve some dignity. The man appears before you, and strokes his fingers along your bare shoulders in an indecent manner.  
  
"Get on your knees for me," he mouths against your neck.  
  
"I - I don't want-"  
  
Your knees buckle beneath you and hit the cold stone tiles of his kitchen. A laugh like a hiss escapes between his teeth.  
  
In your head, a thought that feels like a kiss whispers  _wouldn’t it be nice to suck his cock_  and your hands reach for his flies. You smile at him, dreamily, and he smiles back, sticks a finger in your mouth and watches as you eagerly lick it clean. His hands twist and pull in your sticky hair.  
  
Imagine that you wake up only once more, panicked and screaming and with him deep inside you, pinned up against the wall. You try to struggle, and he kisses you roughly, moans "you want this, my friend," into your mouth, and suddenly you stop and kiss him back like it never happened, your hips moving wantonly against him.  
  
Imagine that later, ruined and bruised and with something dripping down your legs, you walk to the top of his building in your shift. You are warm and you peel off your only layer, sweating from this blinding heat.  
  
Goosebumps are forming on your legs as you open the door to the roof and snow hits you on the face.  
  
You do not notice. Behind you, wrapped in his coat and scarf again, the man watches you with interest, one eyebrow raised.  
  
You take a step up onto the ledge.  
  
Beneath you, the city sways and glimmers in the dark, and you feel suddenly dizzy and tired. Around you, snow is falling. With a burst of clarity, you realise why you are here.  _I want to die_ , you think. It all seems absurdly easy. You almost laugh. You take a step forward and plummet like a stone. It feels like going home.  
  
Imagine that halfway down you wake up. You see the earth coming up to swallow you, and you scream, panic, flail. You hit the ground and your brains splatter over the pavement.  
  
Imagine that a man in a coat watches you crumple as you hit the ground from the top of his building, and anyone who sees this forgets it as soon as they turn away. Imagine that anyone who knows you could forget you ever existed.  
  
Imagine now that every night, you go to this man with a smile on your lips, and every morning you wake up from a good night's rest with bruises you cannot explain.  
  
Yes, my friend. Oh yes.  
  
Imagine that.  
  
**v**  
  
Imagine that the boy you bring home to meet your parents screams, and it smashes your windows, sends your head spinning and makes your father crumple at the knees and draw his last shaking breath. He shrugs and leaves you crying. It happens.  
  
Imagine that the boy you bullied at school finds you, chases after you with superhuman speed, faster than you could ever run, and with strength his scrawny frame could never posess takes your head in his hands and pounds it into the earth. You could not outrun him in a thousand years.  
  
Imagine that the stripper you paid for a private dance laughs at you, drags you backstage, spits acid in your eyes and pulls you out of the window with a flap of your wings. You only wipe it out in time to see her drop you over the ocean, and you breathe water from then on.  
  
Imagine them in your life, my friend. Imagine them destroying it.  
  
Because they will.  
  
**vi**  
  
Your overactive imagination must be getting the better of you by now, my friend.  
  
Take a moment to imagine the people that you work with. Imagine your neighbours. Imagine your teachers. Imagine your closest friends, the ones you trust with your life. Imagine the people who are closest to you.

Imagine the people who are in your house right now.  
  
Now imagine them changing before your eyes, turning into monsters who have been with you since birth for the joy of the game. emons, smiling through the mist of blood spattered across their face. Imagine them laughing. Imagine them twisting everything you are, and ripping your heart out just to feel alive.

Imagine this, my friend, and fear them. Make plans. Watch them, but do not expect them to slip up; they have been doing this for years, and oh, you are one of many. Do not go to anyone for help, for oh - how can you know that they are real?  
  
Do not let them know that you know. Goodness me, imagine what would happen if you did.  
  
Just decide where it is you’re going to run to when they reveal themselves, and you'd better pray it’s far enough. Pray you never have to. Pray they give you time and mind enough to scream.  
  
And oh, have _pleasant_ dreams, my friend.


End file.
